If someone is only playing 5-10 lands, they will be more susceptible to land destruction. Sure, they'll be able to search their deck for another land, but it can easily snowball from there.

As much as I hate LD, if I knew someone was only playing 5-10 lands so they could maximize their combo/synergy, then I would start including more LD to counter them.

I would also play a bit more Wave of Vitriol. Sometimes when we play that we find out who's under-included basic lands in their deck composition.

Yeah, that would be a blowout if they were playing non-basics. However, the rule that Sheldon put forth (and most people have stuck to) is that you get a basic land when you search instead of drawing. So, the 5-10 lands they would be playing would probably be all basics and Wave of Vitriol only hits non-basics.

_________________----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson"Only fools are heroes - because you never know when some lunatic will come along with a sadistic choice."

"At the beginning of each player's upkeep, if that player controls fewer lands than each other player, that player may skip the first card they draw this turn during their draw step. If they do, that player gains a greed counter, then they reveal cards from the bottom of their library until they reveal a basic land card with the same name as a land they control. That player exiles all revealed basic land cards with the same name as a land they control and puts the rest of the revealed cards on the bottom of their library in random order. That player draws 1-n cards, where n is the number of cards exiled this way, then puts all cards exiled this way into their hand. That player loses life equal to twice the number of greed counters on them."

This is a terrible rule because it's klunky and long. But it solves most of the problems presented ( if you agree they are problems anyway ).

1. It prevents over-use of this mechanic.

Greed counters mean everyone can use this once for a reasonable cost. And a second time if they truly need, but it becomes fairly prohibitive after that. Also, proliferate is a widely used mechanic that could keep this under control if it gets abused.

It is possible that all the other restrictions might reduce the need for this, or perhaps change the cost ( 1 life per counter ? ).

2. It prevents using this mechanic as colour fixing.

Only gets basic land cards out with the same name as a land you control.

I don't really think the format would be made better by a mechanic that gives everyone strong colour fixing. That increases the chances of seeing very samey plays every game rather than just helping that one mana-screwed guy when needed.

3. It prevents using this mechanic to skip decking.

The wording sucks ( "draw 1-n cards" ) but it means you draw a card if you whiff either accidentally or deliberately. This both avoids certain feel-bads ( "oh, I guess I don't have another Forest in my deck and I just lost my draw step" ) and stops it from interacting with decking as a mechanic.

4. It has that upkeep wording because it can't actually trigger in the draw step if you want it to replace the draw for the turn ( in your draw step you draw first, then put any "during your draw step / at the beginning of you draw step" triggers on the stack ).

5. It mostly prevents using this mechanic to get free shuffles.

Hopefully this mechanic fetches lands them from the bottom and leaves the top of your deck alone. An always-on mechanic that increases the power of Top and Scroll Rack is, again, probably not great for the format.

If you have a deck with no basics at all then you can use this to shuffle every turn, and you'll still draw a card. That's really the only aspect of this that I didn't "fix" as I don't see an obvious way to do so.

_________________"(P)art of the joy of Commander (is) being forced to work with what we (have), even if it (isn't) optimal. Optimal usually isn't that interesting." - papa funk

If someone is only playing 5-10 lands, they will be more susceptible to land destruction. Sure, they'll be able to search their deck for another land, but it can easily snowball from there.

As much as I hate LD, if I knew someone was only playing 5-10 lands so they could maximize their combo/synergy, then I would start including more LD to counter them.

I would also play a bit more Wave of Vitriol. Sometimes when we play that we find out who's under-included basic lands in their deck composition.

Yeah, that would be a blowout if they were playing non-basics. However, the rule that Sheldon put forth (and most people have stuck to) is that you get a basic land when you search instead of drawing. So, the 5-10 lands they would be playing would probably be all basics and Wave of Vitriol only hits non-basics.

Oh, sure, totally! I'm not thinking of wiping out their lands.

I'm thinking that when their artifacts and enchantments get wiped out, they might not have more than one or two lands left to tutor out for Wave of Vitriol.

That rule is both way too long, involves algebra, and has too many drawbacks. If you're going to have a complicated rule, it has to be worth jumping through all the hoops, and that one isn't.

Agreed. It's trying to do too much to work around niche issues.

"At the beginning of each player's upkeep, if that player doesn't have a Fancy counter and controls fewer lands than each other player then that player may search their library for a basic land card, reveal it, put it into their hand and then shuffle their library. If that player does, they lose two life, gain a Fancy counter and skip the next card drawn this turn during their draw step."

There's also tension between fewer lands than 'each other player' and 'any other player.'

It's turn 3 of a four player game, two players make their third land drops. Player 3 has no lands in hand, but can't use this mechanic (tied w player 4) and so misses their land drop. Worse, then player 4 can't use it either if they need to. This rule saves no one in this case.

But making it 'any other player' seems a bit too easy.. Like, player 1 makes their turn 1 land drop, how often are players 2-4 using this on turn 1 just because it's so darn easy?

It is a fun excuse to write a ( very ) bad rule though.

_________________"(P)art of the joy of Commander (is) being forced to work with what we (have), even if it (isn't) optimal. Optimal usually isn't that interesting." - papa funk

At the beginning of your draw step, if you control less land than any other player you may reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a basic land. Put that land into your hand and lose life equal to the number of cards revealed this way then put the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in a random order.

To be honest I do think they should reban Worldfire, that card doesn't belong in multiplayer magic.

_________________

Shabbaman wrote:

The usual answer is "the social contract", but I guess that is not what you are looking for. Try house rules.

With perfect mana, reasonable removal, disruption, and card advantage, we're back to pitchforks and torches. And it's about to get worse for those who do not enjoy the game as Richard Garfield intended, playing as few win conditions as possible and prompting concession after all hopes (and spells) are lost. - Shaheen Soorani